Synopsis

Arya wakes up after entering into Nymeria again; she remembers being feared, but only when she dreams. Arya is still in the House of Black and White in Braavos. She has been blinded, to train her to use her other senses: recognize lies from the tone of voice, walk and work without seeing, even fight. She calls herself Blind Beth now. She goes over her list of names, but remembers that that was someone else, not her, not Blind Beth.

The kindly man asks her his usual question about three things she has learned. Arya learns to play the lying game with the waif; this time however she is blind, so instead she learns to use tone of voice to hear the lies. Arya has gotten better at speaking High Valyrian, though the kindly man insists she learn the languages of Lys and Pentos as well. As she continues to learn her skills as a blind girl, the kindly man tells her that she has five senses and she should learn to use the other four. An acolyte gets into a duel of staffs with her, teasing her throughout the lesson.

She reminisces that she liked being the Cat of the Canals; she thinks about when she killed Dareon, the deserter from the Night's Watch. The Kindly Man told her that they are not gods to judge who lives or dies, they are just servants of Him of Many Faces. He explains that they are death's instruments, not death itself.

As she goes out to beg, the waif helps her to look the part, putting on a blindfold and giving her pox mark scars to make her look ugly. As she goes out into Braavos past the Inn of the Green Eel, she goes over the areas where she has begged in her mind. Arya crosses the Bloody Bridge and makes her way to Pynto at the end of Ragman's Harbor near the edge of the Drowned Town.

She hears that two Lysene pirate ships, the Goodheart and the Elephant, were driven north by a storm and found wildlings at Hardhome.[1] The wildlings were eager to board the ships that were prophesied by the witch, and the pirates took the women and children on board, yet meant to sell them as slaves. The Goodheart was damaged in another storm and was forced to make for Braavos, where the Sealord seized the ship since slave trade is forbidden in Braavos.

Arya regularly has wolf dreams, and it is revealed that she has also learned to enter a cat. She uses knowledge gained through the cat's eyes to impress the kindly man, telling him that she knows it has been him who is hitting her but without mentioning the cat. Apparently this completes her blind training, because when she opens her eyes again she sees a candle flame, and she has never seen anything so beautiful before.